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| Linebacker communion 3 or 4 masters with varying paths and at least 10 slaves. This communion takes advantage of the fact that self buffs which affect a master also affect all slaves. The masters will cast as many self buffs as possible before the slaves wade forward into melee. This tactic works best with slaves that have more hitpoints and a good attack (like starspawn or vampire counts), but even just passing out frostbrands to your average poindexter before he is buffed with invulnerability, mistform, regeneration, quickness, luck, fire shield, astral shield and breath of winter¿well, there are worse uses for a slew of S1 mages. Note, for this to work it¿s important that you have a sufficient number of slaves, otherwise the slaves will rack up too much fatigue during the buff cycle and be worthless for combat. Also, the slaves will not move or fire if any masters cast spells that round, so you can either have the masters join in the melee attac, retreat from the battle, or equip them with bows and script them to fire after all the buffing is done.
Kamikaze communion 4 slaves as cheap as you can manage and 4-6 masters. This one is straightforward enough, the point is to boost the masters up two levels to give them access to the next tier of offensive spells (ie, giving A1 mages the ability to cast Thunderstrike). As the name implies, the slaves are not expected to survive. This can be a good way to pack a lot of firepower in a pinch. Superman communion The numbers on this one vary depending on what you¿re trying to accomplish, but the idea is to have a whole bunch of slaves and only one or two masters casting those really devastating spells. The classic example of this is Master Enslave communions, though there are other good choices for more modest uses like flaming arrows, fog warriors, darkness, etc. The important factors are that there are enough slaves and that the handful of spells which are cast are devastating enough to make the opportunity cost worthwhile of all these mages doing nothing else. Alright, there¿s some basic recipes for your book, obviously you can start mix and matching them as you become more comfortable. Now for the optional twists previously mentioned. The blood spell Sabbath Master is equivalent (and mutually interchangeable you can join a communion by casting Sabbath Master) but functionally there are two big differences. The first is that Sabbath Master costs 100 fatigue, so casting it with a B1 mage will result in a pass out once you account for encumbrance. What makes up for this in a big way though is that nice little blood spell reinvigoration. If a master casts reinvigoration not only does it remove all his fatigue, it removes all the fatigue of all the slaves. For this reason strategic use of a single blood mage can as much as double the effectiveness of your communion. Crystal/slave matrixes. These magic items allow non astral/blood mages to join a communion (note: they must still be mages of some type). The potential uses of this in combination with the linebacker or reverse communions should be obvious. One note of caution however, because of the fact that slaves rack up fatigue really fast if they don¿t have the paths for the spell the master is casting it¿s very important to have enough slaves to compensate for this if masters are casting spells which the slaves don¿t have paths in. Keep in mind penetration goes up with the mage¿s power and sometimes extra penetration can be worthwhile even if you¿re not enabling extra spells. Have that S9 pretender lead all those S1 researchers you have in a communion before spamming enslave mind. It beats whatever the heck S1 mages would otherwise be casting. Phoenix pyre can add an amusing twist to the linebacker communion as it can set off a devastating chain reaction. Expect this to be a fairly kamikaze move. Some magic items cause their effect by autocasting a spell at the very beginning of combat such as a charcoal shield or crystal shield. These spells, if they're self buffs will effect slaves who are part of the communion so long as the item is worn by a master who is in the communion. Since the timing on this is such that the buff is cast before anyone can cast master/slave communion, this generally only effects people wearing crystal/slave matrixes (though pythium's communicants are an exception, and there may be others). Hellpower is an interesting spell in combination with Sabbath, but rather difficult to use effectively. A master casting hellpower will result in every slave being effected by all the effects of hellpower, including being horror marked and having a chance of calling a horror. Obviously you seldom want a bunch of people calling horrors immediately after all your mages have been horror marked. This can be useful in two situation though. The first is if you are fighting a SC (or really anybody) who has already been seriously horror marked (if you're particularly baalzy, you might try to horror mark them the same fight before casting hell power) - horrors will attack the most horror marked units first. The second situation is a kamikaze linebacker move where you uber buff the slaves then don't care if they die. This is pretty wasteful though unless your slaves are tough enough to survive a couple AN hits from horrors. I have used this tactic successfully with LA Ulm's vampire counts (2b 2d), resulting in a dozen uber buffed, life draining, flying thugs...who happened to be immortal so no worries if they died. The nice thing about hell power is it not only increases magic power, it increases attack, defense, strength (hitpoints, I don't remember) so it's particularly useful in this case. Note, your slaves are going to rack up horror marks when you do this even if you win the fight, so use it sparingly even with immortals. Quote: DrPraetorious said: Communion masters generally carry valuable gems, possibly penetration boosting items, and seldom have to worry much about fatigue, obviously. So it's generally a good idea to protect your investment (vs. stray arrows, for example) by putting them in some armor. This also goes to the question of how to protect a valuable communion if you are very communion dependent (for example, as Pythium or Ermor or Bogarus). * Rune Smashers, Eyes of the Void and Spell Foci are all great for masters casting Shadow Blast or groovy stuff like master enslave. * Masters spamming elemental attack spells want boosters, not for fatigue reduction, but for increased damage and/or area of effect. This is obviously true for most of them (note all the +s in the spell description) - what most people don't know is that the fatigue inflicted by the secondary wave (which is area 9!) from thunderstrike is also air-magic-dependant, so if you can push your air magic up higher it becomes much more devastating. * A communion matrix is often a good investment even for a communion master who has astral. +1 turn of spell casting is a huge advantage, and for a big-spell communion, it is not expensive. * 50% resistance to fire and cold more or less assure that you won't go down to a murdering winter or flames from the sky. Various combinations of armor and misc items grant this, but fire plate and a ring of ice is probably the cheapest way to go. In the late game, murdering winter/flames from the sky are a virtual surety. If you have the Forge, absolutely forge fire plate and a ring of frost for each and every slave. Quote:
Meglobob said: I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it? Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest. An often overlooked aspect of the communion is the fact that it also buffs holy levels (as does power of the spheres). The flip side of what Meglobob suggests can be good - H6 priests spamming banishment are hideously effective at clearing out low level undead due of the exponential increase in effectiveness the power boost brings. You can even use crystal matrixes if you don't have astral priests, though keep in mind that they do need to be some flavor of mage for the matrix to work. No reason you can't, say slap a crystal matrix on a High inquisitor (3H 1F) then have lowly astral slaves boost him up to an undead popping juggernaut. Since banishment is 0 fatigue this makes a lot of sense to combine with a reverse communion - your buffed masters can banish away without fatiguing the slaves. Sometimes it can be useful to pass out items which can "cast spells" to communion slaves so they can use them fatigue free (outside of encumberance), this can be a little dangerous though as you'll have to script your slaves to "cast spells" after your script runs out which means the AI might decide to cast something unexpected driving up your fatigue rather than the 0 cost item spell. Still, this works particularly well with standards of the damned because the life draining effect removes fatigue. Not cheap, but if you can manage to get one on each of your slaves you can have an effectively unlimited casting out of the communion on top of a slew of sniper slaves. 8.10 Magic Path Booster Guide This guide is designed to help new players understand what spells and items are available to boost their magic paths. Veterans will not find anything new and exciting here, but hopefully it will be a useful reference all the same. NOTE: Only relevant boosters and summons will be mentioned in the guide. For instance, the Wraith Lord is a D3 mage, but he requires D5 to be summoned so he does not boost your maximum magic path even after you give him boosters. NOTE: In general the easiest method to boost magic paths will be highlighted, although that does not mean there aren't other ways. 8.10.1 Air Relevant items: Bag of Winds (req Con4, A4, Misc. slot) Winged Helmet (req Con4, A4, Head slot)
Faerie Court (req Conj8, N5) A3N3 Tartarian Gate (req Conj9, D7) ?7 Bind Demon Lord (req Blood9, B8) The game does not provide a lot of help in boosting your Air magic, with access to Air 1, 2, or 3, you really can't do anything. The only exception is if you have A2S2 and Construction 8, then you can forge the Tome of High Power (req A2S2, Misc. slot *Slight chance of Horror mark) which boosts both your Air and Astral magic by 1. However, you'd have to have A3S2 for the tome to boost you high enough to forge additional items. Alternatively, if you have Nature 5 and Conjuration 8 you can cast Faerie Court, but you still have to empower the queen up to 4 in order to forge boosters. See the section on Nature for how to get up to level 5. Finally, if you get all the way to Death 7 and Conjuration 9 you can summon Tartarians with a chance of up to A7, but if you don't have Air by the time you summon them, you probably don't need it. On the bright side, only one spell in the game requires you to go higher than Air 6. Fata Morgana requires Air 7 but it's not the greatest global enchantment. Air 6 gets you everything you want, which is probably Wrathful Skies, Mists of Deception, and a really big Mirror Image. Finally, Pazuzu the Demon Lord has Air 5, but it also spreads disease so it is not exactly the most versatile commander. Large quantities of Air magic can be great on the battlefield, but if you don't start with it naturally, don't try too hard to get it. ---- 8.10.2 Astral Relevant items: Crystal Coin (req Con4, S2E2, Misc. slot) Ring of Sorcery (req Con6, S5, Misc. slot) Ring of Wizardry (req Con6, S6, Misc. slot) Starshine Skullcap (req Con6, S2, Head slot) Relevant Summons: Bind Arch Devil (req B4F2) F4 (1 in 5 chance of S3) Bind Ice Devil (req B3W3) W3 (1 in 6 chance of S2) Ether Gate (req S4D1) S3D2?1 (100% chance of Air, Astral, Death, Blood) Summon Spectre (req D3) D1?2 (100% chances of Astral, Death, Earth, Water) Hidden in Sand (Ench. 6, req E3D1) E1D2H2 (50% chance at +1D, one 100% chance at +2F/E/S, and one 50% chance at +1F) Information provided by Cleveland You need at least Astral 2 to get started in this path, at which point you can forge a Starshine Skullcap to get to 3. If you're lucky and have earth magic as well, you can forge a Crystal Coin. At this point you're stuck unless you count the Dimensional Rod or Tome of High Power artifacts at Construction 8: Dimensional Rod (req A3, Hand slot, cursed *slight chance of horror mark and/or insanity) Tome of High Power (req A2S2, Misc. slot *Slight chance of horror mark)
Relevant items: Armor of Souls (req Con2, B5, Chest slot) Armor of Twisting Thorns (req Con4, B3N2, Chest slot, cannot be removed) Blood Thorn (req Con6, B4, Hand slot) Brazen Vessel (req Con4, B4, Misc. slot) Relevant Summons: Awaken Treelord (Ench. 7, req N5) N4 (Chance of B1 or E1) Bind Arch Devil (Blood 7, req B4F2) F4 (1 in 5 chance of S3) Bind Heliophagus (Blood 8, req B5) Chance of B4, F4B3, D4B3, or D3B3 Bind Ice Devil (Blood 6, req B3W3) W3 (1 in 6 chance of S2) Bind Demon Lord (Blood 9, req B8) Contact Lamia Queen (Conj. 6, req N5D2) D2N1?2 (100% chances of Blood, Death, Nature, Water) Ether Gate (Conj. 6, req S4D1) S3D2?1 (100% chance of Air, Astral, Death, Blood) Like Air, blood magic is hard to boost until you get to level 4 (or level 3 if you also have nature). However unlike Air, it is possible to create your own economy of blood slaves. Even a commander with no blood magic has a chance to be successful with the blood hunt command, so if you devote enough people to this endeavor you can eventually get enough slaves to empower someone to Blood 1. From there, get 5 more slaves and forge a Sanguine Dousing Rod, and then that commander blood will hunt as if he/she were a Blood 2 mage. From here, blood hunting is much more consistent, and you can continue to empower commanders to increase your blood slave income. Before long you'll be pulling in 100+ slaves per turn and empowering someone to Blood 4 is not a big deal. Alternatively, you can try the Awaken Treelord spell, Contact Lamia Queen or Ether Gate, sometimes the commander has a blood random, which takes all the pain and effort out of getting that first batch of slaves. In addition to the boosters listed above, you can also use Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry, and there are three artifacts (Construction 8) that boost blood: Flesh Ward (req B5, Chest slot) The Black Book of Secrets (req B2D2, Misc. slot) Tome of the Lower Planes (req B2S3, Misc. slot)
F4E4B4 *Heretic 5 (lowers all dominion towards 0) Attracts blood slaves and milita
F4N4B4 *Causes unrest Buer F5D3B4
A5D3B4 *Spreads disease
Relevant Items: Scepter of Dark Regency (req Con8, D5, Hand slot) Skull Staff (req Con4, D2, 2 Hand slots) Skullface (req Con6, D4, Head slot) The Jade Mask (req Con6, D6N3, Head slot) +2 Death Relevant Summons: Bind Heliophagus (Blood 8, req B5) Chance of B4, F4B3, D4B3, or D3B3 Bind Demon Lord (Blood 9, req B8) Contact Lamia Queen (Conj. 6, req N5D2) D2N1?2 (100% chances of Blood, Death, Nature, Water) Ether Gate (Conj. 6, req S4D1) S3D2?1 (100% chance of Air, Astral, Death, Blood) Hidden in Snow (Ench. 6, req W3D1) D1?4 (Small chance at Death, Earth, Water) Hidden in Sand (Ench. 6, req E3D1) E1D2H2 (50% chance at +1D, one 100% chance at +2F/E/S, and one 50% chance at +1F) Information provided by Cleveland Lichcraft (Ench. 8, req D5) D4 Streams from Hades (Conj. 6, req W4D1) W3D3 Summon Mound Fiend (Conj. 7, req D3) D3H2 Summon Spectre (Conj. 6, req D3) D1?2 (100% chances of Astral, Death, Earth, Water) Tartarian Gate (Conj. 9, req D7) ?7 Death is easy to get to a certain level, but there are some very powerful death spells above 6 and you may have empower (or use Astral rings) for a level or two if you want to get to them. You need at least D2 to begin, at which point you can forge a Skull Staff to get to 3. From here you can summon a Mound Fiend at Conjuration 7. Give the Skull Staff to the Mound Fiend to boost him to Death 4 and you can forge a Skullface. Now you can cast Lichcraft to get a Demilich and give him both items to get to level 6. If you're lucky, you can forge the Construction 8 artifact Scepter of Dark Regency which gives an astounding +3 death magic. This is a unique artifact, so if you're playing a death nation and you are planning to spam Tartarians, I consider getting it to be a high priority. Even if you have a mage summoning Tartarians through empowerment, this item will let you summon two a turn instead of just one. The Mound Fiend with the scepter and the Skullface has Death 7, the Demilich 8. You can also get the last level from The Black Book of Secrets (req B2D2, Misc. slot), but if you didn't manage to craft the sceptre, I doubt you'll have this either. In that case you'll just have to empower the missing levels or use Astral rings. Another option is the Jade Mask. It provides +2 death magic but requires the wearer to be cold blooded. Lamia Queens are cold blooded and she is D2N1 with 2 random picks of Blood, Death, Nature, or Water. If you get really lucky she can be D4 at which point you just need a Skull Staff and the Jade Mask to start summoning Tartarians. Throw in the Astral rings and she is D9. Information provided by K In rare cases that you only have Death 1 but you have some other magic, you can cast Streams from Hades (req W4D1) to boost yourself to Death 3 or Ether Gate to get to D2. Hidden in Snow is also an option, but it is not guaranteed to produce a commander. When it does, he is D1 with two 50% chances at +1D, three 50% chances at +1W, and three 50% chances at +1E. Information provided by cleveland. Death is a great path for getting into other areas of magic. Spectres have 2 chances of getting Astral, Death, Earth or Water magic, and at Conjuration 9 you can cast Tartarian Gate. This spell has a 20% chance of the summon being a commander, and that commander can have up to level 7 in a single magic path, or all manner of lesser combinations. The nature spell Gift of Reason can be very useful here, as can abilities that heal afflictions such as the global enchantment Gift of Health, or the artifact The Chalice. ---- 8.10.5 Earth Relevant Items: Blood Stone (req E2B3, Misc. slot) Earth Boots (req E2, Feet slot) Relevant Summons: Awaken Treelord (req N5) N4 (Chance of B1 or E1) Hidden in Snow (req W3D1) D1?4 (Small chance at Death, Earth, Water) Summon Spectre (req D3) D1?2 (100% chances of Astral, Death, Earth, Water) Tartarian Gate (req D7) ?7 Troll King's Court (req E3) E3 Hidden in Sand (Ench. 6, req E3D1) E1D2H2 (50% chance at +1D, one 100% chance at +2F/E/S, and one 50% chance at +1F) Information provided by Cleveland
Relevant Items: Flame Helmet (req Con4, F4, Head slot) Skull of Fire (req Con6, F1D1, Misc. slot) Relevant Summons: Bind Arch Devil (Blood 7, req B4F2) F4 (1 in 5 chance of S3) Bind Heliophagus (Blood 8, req B5) Chance of B4, F4B3, D4B3, or D3B3 Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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